Getting to know Lepa

There's a close relationship between Enermax and Lepa, the latter of which you may not be as familiar with. Lepa is a brand that belongs to Ecomaster, which itself is a U.S. distributor for Enermax. You can also view Lepa as Enermax's house brand, or as siblings under parent company Ecomaster. Make sense? Let's move on to what we saw from Lepa at the Consumer Electronics Show -- a new water cooler and a promising case design.

Not your typical liquid cooling solution

Have you ever seen a water cooling setup that resembles Cthulhu? If not, then you've never seen Gigabyte's Water Force cooler, a unique and crazy looking apparatus that we had to see for ourselves. And now you can too, thanks to our Online Managing Editor and proficient deep water diver Jimmy Thang, who waded his way through the busy crowd at the Consumer Electronics Show to catch on camera Gigabyte's cool creation.

Having fun with FreeSync

A visit to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas wouldn't be complete without popping by AVN AMD to see what the Sunnyvale chip designer is excited about as we embark on a new year of technology, and we got our answer to that when Online Managing Editor and freestyle rap legend Jimmy Thang moonwalked his way to AMD's location. It was there that he got a glimpse of AMD's FreeSync display technology in action.

Another attempt to get Android into the living room

You can always count on Razer to introduce a surprise product or two every year at the Consumer Electronics Show. Last year it was Project Christine, a modular PC concept that may one day become an actual consumer product. And this year? Well, Razer has multiple items on tap, including Forge TV, which it describes as a high-performance Android TV micro-console with a lofty goal.

Fast storage in a sexy package

The fastest SATA 6Gbps SSDs top out at around 590MB/s, and if you want to go faster, one way to do that is by utilizing PCI Express. That's exactly what Plextor has done. Yes, the same Plextor that made a name for itself with high-end optical drives, back when that sort of thing mattered. These days Plextor's been focusing on more modern products, like its new M6e Black Edition SSD.

A real look at Razer's virtual play

Whether or not virtual reality has the legs to go the distance remains to be seen, especially since the technology is in the crawling stage at this point. However, what we do know for sure is that there are a lot of companies excited about the potential. Obviously there's Oculus Rift VR, which is the most popular, but now we have Razer as a player. One of Razer's big reveals at this year's Consumer Electronics Show is the Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) ecosystem, and we were on hand to discuss the technology with the company.

Speedy and capacious

Mushkin this week unveiled its new Striker line of solid state drives. The new drives are built for speed and reliability, which largely boils down to the type of controller -- in this case, Mushkin opted for a Phison PS3110-S10 controller, which boasts a quad-core, 8-channel design. It also features 256-bit AES encryption, Opal 2.0, end-to-end path protection, and a few other technologies.

Spunky laptop lasts up to 15 hours per charge

Intel's been talking a big game about its 5th Generation Core processors based on 14nm Broadwell, which offers better performance and battery life compared to Haswell. Hardware partner Dell wasted no time putting the new chips to use. At the Consumer Electronics Show, we had Online Managing Editor and video ninja Jimmy Thang check out the new fancy pants Dell XPS 13.

A 6mm Android tablet with x86 guts

What does the world's thinnest tablet look like? You won't find the answer to that question by hanging out in an Apple store, not unless someone from Dell happens by. That's because Dell's new Venue 8 measures a scant 6mm, making it the thinnest tablet around, and we got a chance to see it in person at the Consumer Electronics Show. It's a x86 slate that runs Android, along with a few other snazzy features.

The skinny on Intel's newest CPUs

We got our first look at Intel's Broadwell architecture when the Santa Clara outfit launched its Core M parts last year. However, those were mostly aimed at fanless 2-in-1 hybrid devices and other similar form factors. At the Consumer Electronics Show this year, Intel announced its 5th Generation Core CPUs based on its 14nm Broadwell micro-architecture, so we sent Online Managing Editor and expert chip taster Jimmy Thang to see if he could squeeze any more information out of the company.